Early life, education and family

Fleming was born in Meridian in Lauderdale County in eastern Mississippi. He grew up in a working class home in which his mother became disabled and could not work when he was still young. Just prior to his high school graduation, Fleming's father died of a heart attack, and he had to work his way through college. He attended the University of Mississippi in Oxford, MS and was awarded his Bachelor of Science degree in 1973. He went on to attend medical school at the same university, but at the Jackson, MS campus and received his M.D. degree in 1976.[3] He entered the United States Navy to continue his medical training in 1976 and served until 1982 after completing his residency in 1979.[4] Fleming and his wife, Cindy, married in 1978. The couple has four children.[5]

Medical career

After earning his medical degree, Fleming was chief resident in family medicine at the Naval Regional Medical Center in Camp Pendleton, California. He also trained at the drug and alcohol treatment unit at the Navy Regional Medical Center in Long Beach, California.[5] Serving in the Navy after his residency, Fleming practiced family medicine on the island of Guam.[6] From 1979 to 1981, he was the director of drug and alcohol treatment and chairman of the Navy Family Advocacy Committee. He subsequently performed similar duties in Charleston, South Carolina.[5]

After leaving the Navy, Fleming established his practice in Minden in August 1982. His first clinic was on Pearl Street across from the United States Post Office. He chose Minden for his city of residence because, in his words, it "has small-town charm, warm essence of life, long, lazy summer days with watermelon cuts and family reunions."[7] To attract patients to his new practice, Fleming announced evening and Saturday morning hours to accommodate working people and students.[8]

Fleming received a certification from the American Board of Family Practice[5] and joined the staff of the Minden Medical Center.[9] Fleming also joined the Louisiana Academy of Family Physicians (LAFP). In 2007, he was chosen as the LAFP "Louisiana Family Practice Physician of the Year."[5]

Fleming previously worked with chemically dependent persons through the program called "New Beginnings" at the Minden Medical Center.[10] His book, Preventing Addiction: What Parents Must Know to Immunize Their Kids Against Drug And Alcohol Addiction was published in 2006.[11]

Webster Parish coroner

In 1987, Fleming entered the race for coroner of Webster Parish against the incumbent, the late Dr. Charles Hancock, but withdrew after learning the position would take too much time from his regular medical duties.[14]

In 1995, he ran for coroner again. He defeated the nonpartisan candidate, Dr. Carlos A. Irizarry, 7,842 votes and 60.6%, to 5,143 votes with 39.6%. Fleming succeeded Democraticincumbent Dr. Carl A. Hines, from Minden, who did not seek re-election.[13][15]

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

2008

Fleming entered the race for the District 4 House seat after the 21-year incumbent Jim McCrery announced his retirement from the House. Fleming received political support from the LAFP and the American Academy of Family Physicians' (AAFP) political action committee for his campaign.[16]

Fleming supported the FairTax,[12] which would replace the income tax with a flat rate on consumption, as defined in the legislation, of 23 percent of the total payment on personal consumption.[17]

The primary and subsequent runoff election were delayed because of Hurricane Gustav. In the October 4, 2008, Republican closed primary, Fleming ran against Jeff R. Thompson, a lawyer from Bossier City, and Chris Gorman. In the election, no candidate received a majority of the votes. Fleming led with 14,500 votes (35.1 percent), followed by Gorman with 14,072 votes (34.1 percent), and Thompson with 12,693 votes (30.8 percent).[18] This established a primary runoff between Fleming and Gorman which was held on November 4, along with the national presidential election.

In the runoff, Fleming defeated Gorman, 43,012 votes (55.6 percent) to 34,405 (44.4 percent) and carried all but one of the thirteen parishes in the district.[19]

In the 2006 race against McCrery, "Catfish" Kelley ran as a Republican and drew 12 percent of the vote under the old primary format.[20] In 2008, his 3 percent was far more than the margin between Fleming and Carmouche. A plurality is sufficient to win the general election—which, along with the District 2 race, were the last congressional races in the nation in 2008.[21]

Outgoing Vice PresidentDick Cheney appeared in Shreveport on November 21 to speak at a fundraiser for Fleming.[22] Politico.com indicated that McCrery supports Fleming but had made no official endorsement and had not appeared at any of Fleming's campaign events.[13] On December 2, McCrery spoke on Fleming's behalf in an appearance on The Moon Griffon Show radio program, which is syndicated in most Louisiana media markets. He used the argument that Carmouche, if successful, would cast his first vote for Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.[23]

On December 10, 2008, Paul Carmouche formally conceded the election to Fleming.[24]

Political consultant Lee Fletcher managed Fleming's campaign for Congress and served for the first few months in the term as Fleming's chief of staff. Fletcher died at the age of forty-three on September 30, 2009. He had been the chief of staff to U.S. Representative John Cooksey of Louisiana's 5th congressional district. In 2002, Fletcher lost the 5th District race to Rodney Alexander of Jackson Parish, then a Democrat who later became a Republican in August 2004.

2010

Fleming was unopposed in the Republican primary in 2010 but was challenged by the Democratic nominee, David R. Melville, a United Methodist minister from Bossier City and the brother-in-law of former GovernorBuddy Roemer. Artis Cash, a Shreveport community organizer, ran as an Independent in the general election. Buddy Roemer, then still a Republican and later a candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, supported David Melville in the general election.[25]

Fleming was reelected with 62.3% of the vote. Melville received 32.4% of the popular vote, and Independent candidate Dr. Artis Cash, an African American minister, trailed with 5.3%. Fleming presented himself as an anti-Obama Republican who would work to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Fleming said that Democratic policies were out of step with his district and most of America.[26][27]

2012

Fleming was unopposed by a Democratic candidate in his 2012 re-election bid in his district that is 2 to 1 Democratic registration but has a Cook PVI of R +11.[28] In the November 6, 2012 general election, Fleming instead faced opposition from a Libertarian candidate, Randall Lord of Shreveport, a former chiropractor studying psychology at Louisiana State University in Shreveport.[29] Fleming defeated Lord, 187,790 (75.3 percent) to 61,587 (24.7 percent).[30]

2014

On April 4, 2013, Fleming announced that he would not in 2014 seek the United States Senate held since 1997 by the Democratic Mary Landrieu. Instead his colleague, U.S. Representative Bill Cassidy of Baton Rouge, had announced on April 3 that he would challenge Landrieu. In his statement, Fleming said: "For me to enter the race now would risk a contest between two experienced Republican congressmen, potentially offering Senator Landrieu a path back to Washington. I can't let that happen."[31]

Tenure

2011 tax plan comments

In a September 19, 2011 interview on MSNBC, in which Fleming criticized President Obama's proposed plan to increase taxes on the wealthy, Fleming told host Chris Jansing, "The amount that I have to invest in my business and feed my family is more like $600,000 of that $6.3 million.... So by the time I feed my family I have, maybe, $400,000 left over to invest in new locations, upgrade my locations, buy more equipment." When Jansing asked Fleming if he thought the "average person" might be unsympathetic to Fleming's position, Fleming responded, "Class warfare never created a job...This is not about attacking people who make certain incomes. You know in this country, most people feel that being successful in their business is a virtue, not a vice, and once we begin to identify it as a vice, this country is going down."[33]

Fleming's remarks were widely reported and resulted in considerable commentary. Bruce Alpert, of Louisiana newspaper The Times-Picayune, reported that "on liberal blogs, Fleming was portrayed as insensitive to millions of working Americans who are struggling to meet expenses in the face of high unemployment and stagnant wages." [33] Conservative sources including Bill O'Reilly and the Drudge Report defended Fleming's remarks; Josh Beavers, publisher of the Minden Press-Herald in Fleming's hometown, wrote an editorial which stated, "[Fleming's] sentiment was only that the more taxes he pays the fewer people he can employ. High taxes on business owners thwart economic activity."[33][34][35]

2013 budget cuts statement

In 2013, Fleming was quoted in Forbes as saying:"Republicans in general, we desperately want a reduction in spending to get government back into balance. We would rather take some cuts in areas that we are not comfortable with than have no cuts at all."[36]Forbes noted that Fleming's district includes Barksdale Air Force Base and Fort Polk, both major employers.[36] At a discussion in February 2013 in DeRidder, Fleming stated he would not vote to allow the government to cut $600 million from the defense plan.[37]
Fleming voted against the Budget Control Act of 2011,[38] the act which caused the automatic budget sequestration in March 2013.[39]
In this November 21, 2011 statement Fleming criticized the Budget Control Act because of what he called "devastating cuts to military spending." [40]

This article was sourced from Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. World Heritage Encyclopedia content is assembled from numerous content providers, Open Access Publishing, and in compliance with The Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR), Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Public Library of Science, The Encyclopedia of Life, Open Book Publishers (OBP), PubMed, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and USA.gov, which sources content from all federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial government publication portals (.gov, .mil, .edu). Funding for USA.gov and content contributors is made possible from the U.S. Congress, E-Government Act of 2002.

Crowd sourced content that is contributed to World Heritage Encyclopedia is peer reviewed and edited by our editorial staff to ensure quality scholarly research articles.

By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. World Heritage Encyclopedia™ is a registered trademark of the World Public Library Association, a non-profit organization.